Conventional wood burning fireplaces are configured to allow a user to load wood and other suitable solid fuel into the firebox in a selected arrangement before lighting the fuel to try to start the fire. Often a user must use a combination of paper, kindling, tinder, paraffin-based fire starter, or the like, to “start the fire” in a manner to cause the larger pieces wood to catch fire and to continue to burn. This manual process of lighting the fire can be time intensive, require multiple other materials, and can be frustrating if the fire won't “start” sufficiently to fully ignite the cut logs, rounds, or other larger pieces of wood. After the wood or other solid fuel has been ignited when initially manually starting the fire, the fuel often does not continue to burn and the fire will go out. Accordingly, the user must try to restart the fire and continue to tend the fire until the fuel is sufficiently hot so as to continue to burn without going out prematurely. There is a need for a system to assist in starting and maintaining a fire at a wood burning or other solid fuel burning fireplace assembly.